The Father never turned His back, He never left, or forsook Jesus, He never abandoned, not even for a moment. His love was just as good as it’s always been.

Long ago, I made Jesus, sovereign love, my hermeneutic, my “methodology of interpretation,” (6) the lens through which my entire theology is defined.

              Years ago I was wrapping up final edits for my book, Prone To Love. I had sent the manuscript to several close friends, pastors, authors and leaders I love and highly esteem. I requested both editorial thoughts and...

     Shortly after my book Prone To Love released I came across a review. The reviewer was an earnest believer who graciously but systematically challenged many of my core thoughts regarding the perfection of Gods always-good love. The review was thorough, the...

Most of us know God as a good Master and while that is true and brilliant, if our revelation of God as a good Master doesn’t mature into a revelation of God as a good Father, we may find ourselves living like a prodigal.

We have grown in our understanding that discipline is about revealing, releasing, and empowering identity.

I believe God is always saying one thing: “I love you.” And He always follows up with a question, “do you believe me?” What would our lives look like if we could answer this one question that God is always asking?

Peter, in a relationship with Jesus, meets the Father and then is given his identity and his inheritance. This is huge.

If I type into Google’s search bar, “If God is good…” Google will finish my search with the following suggestions: …Why is there suffering? …why do bad things happen? …why is there evil?

David experienced the valley but the valley was never God’s heart for him. Jesus went to a cross. But the cross was never His focus. Death is never the focus with God, He is always and only about resurrection. Jesus said He came to give us life and life more abundantly (John 10:10). Jesus—the Father revealed—was focused on the joy of resurrection life.

Every test by God is an invitation to transition from one narrative to another, from control to love, from orphan to son or daughter, from bondage to freedom, from fractured thinking to wholeness, from our perspective to His, from our best thoughts about who He is, to the truth about who He is, from our story, to the whole story; the one He is telling.

Control, it masquerades in the religious rhetoric of holiness; its wars are holy, its politics, its inquisitions, its crusades, its genocide, its prejudice, discrimination, racism, sexism, its abuse – all painted with the brush of fanatic righteousness.

I met a philosophy professor the other day. Well, actually I see him a few times a week. He frequents the same coffee shop I do.

Jesus never once was “prone to wander” or “prone to leave the God He loved.” He came to earth to settle that exact issue once and for all. He came to set us free that we too might see, encounter, and become love; that we might be transformed from prone to wander to prone to love Him!

I believe God is always saying one thing: “I love you.” And He always follows up with a question, “do you believe me?” What would our lives look like if we could answer this one question that God is always asking?

Discovering our Fathers pleasure is the most empowering thing a Christian will ever do. The opposite is true, believing Father God is angry or displeased will lead to an insecure and survivalist faith walk. Here are five signs you may be serving an angry or “displeased” God.